Coroner's plea to find families of shamed surgeon Ian Paterson's patients

BBC News

4 days ago

The families of five of jailed surgeon Ian Paterson's patients, whose cases are being examined at judge-led inquests, have not yet been traced.The coroner's legal team have been unable to trace next of kin for Jean Bonehill, Gladys Currall, Elaine Morris, Ann Styles, and Winifred Worrall, the BBC has been told.The inquest into the death of Elaine Morris, who died aged 45, resumed in Birmingham on Monday. The coroner, Judge Richard Foster, asked for help to trace her family.Ian Paterson was sentenced to 20 years in 2017, after being convicted of wounding patients with botched and unnecessary operations. He is known to have treated thousands of patients at hospitals in the West Midlands.
Judge Foster said Ms Morris was born in Birmingham in 1956. She suffered from severe epilepsy, had to use a wheelchair and was cared for by her mother at home in Shirley, Solihull. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her right side at the age of 42, and died in Solihull in 2002, aged 45.As no next of kin have been traced, the coroner's legal team do not have a picture of Ms Morris and the judge asked if this could be publicised.
Solicitors to the inquests told the BBC work to trace next of kin was an "ongoing process"."The other cases will be identified as we hear these cases should we not have been able to identify the next of kin by the time of the hearing," solicitor firm Higgs said."The coroner's team are making their standard investigations along with assistance from the police where appropriate."Debbie Douglas, who underwent needless surgery at Paterson's hands, said it was said the families could not be traced."There's no-one there to represent them to show the kind of person they were."The names are read out, and the judge does that with sensitivity, but that doesn't paint a picture of that person."
The inquests look into the cases of 63 of Ian Paterson's former patients.They are to determine whether the women died an unnatural death as a result of Paterson's actions.This will include determining whether any of them had so-called cleavage-sparing mastectomies from Paterson, where some breast tissue was retained.Between 1997 and 2011, Paterson worked at Spire Parkway hospital and Spire Little Aston hospital.The former surgeon, originally from Bangor, County Down, also worked at NHS hospitals run by the former Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.
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